Going Bonkers!

We are all going bonkers being cooped up inside all day! It has been forever freezing here in the mid-west. Yesterday we took an hour drive to Quincy, IL to go to the famous "Going Bonkers." It is like a McDonald's play place multiplied by 100!! It is a HUGE indoor jungle gym, and the best thing is that it is cheap! Cost us $2 for Makenzie. Adults and babies are free. Even though Tyler had the day off of school, he opted to stay home and study. I forgot the camera, so it's hard to explain all that this place has to offer. It is mostly constructed of seatbelt material interweaved like a basket. They have slides, rope swings, tight ropes, jumping areas, etc. We'll be visiting this place again soon, and I'll bring the camera next time.

I must tell you a little story about the trip.... After Bonkers I went over to Kohls because I had a Christmas giftcard to use up. Makenzie would not stay in the cart for the life of me. She stayed around me while I looked for the most part, but then before I knew it she was long gone. I saw her weaving through the clothes and giggling. She lost a shoe in the process. Within seconds I could not find her. After several minutes of doing laps around the store, I gave up and told a store clerk. She announced a "Code Yellow" over the intercom with Makenzie's description. We had the whole store looking for her. Customers were telling me that they just saw her. Well, after about five minutes with no success, Makenzie practically bumped into me laughing. She was wearing a woman's brown tanktop and she was now completely shoeless. (May I also mentioned that she took her socks off at Bonkers and we never found them.) I was so frustrated with this little mischief maker. She was mad at me for taking off the tanktop, as she said she was "Snow White" and that was her dress! Luckily, we found the shoes without too much searching. I was able to find three sweaters on clearance, and I was done shopping.... (Thanks Wendy!)

Many Faces

Jordan is going through a phase of making these kind of faces alot....





Jordan also loves this blanket. He loves to bite on it and bury his head in it as well.

Jordan is walking!

Jordan is officially walking! He's been taking small steps here and there for the past month. But this weekend he has really taken off. As long as he doesn't fall, he'll cruise around by walking. He's still a little unsteady and he proved it when he came crashing down on the TV stand. He's got a good little gash below his lip and a blood blister inside his mouth. OUCH!

Happy Feet Dance Class

Here's Makenzie at her Happy Feet dance class. She had a really fun time today. We got her a leotard and I made the little skirt for $2! One yard of $1 fabric and $1 for elastic. They had
similar skirts that they were selling for $7! I knew my sewing ability was good for something. The first video is of her swimming under the sea. The second is her walking like a stick man and then dancing with her hands on her hips.


.

New Music....

It's time to remove the Christmas music from our site. I figured I would go for our favorite love songs in honor of Valentine's Day.

Change of plans

We were looking forward to visiting a cousin of mine for the New Year. We randomly bumped into each other at Stake Conference a few months ago and decided to make a holiday visit to get reaquianted. She lives about a half hour past Nauvoo, totaling our trip to be approx. 2 1/2 hours. With our luck, it was snowing all morning! We were determined to go since we kept putting off the trip. Plus we were looking forward to actually doing something besides staying at home for our holiday break.

We had to drive pretty slow.... 45 mph instead of the usual 65 mph. There are like no major freeways in site, so we have to travel the "back roads" all the time. I miss not being able to go 75 mph at all! The roads were snowy, but the plows were out. Tyler was really driving cautious, but to our dismay, the snow got the better of us and we spun a 180 onto the shoulder. "OK, not a big deal," I thought. It got our blood pumping a little bit faster, but we kept driving like nothing happened. Within 10 minutes, we started spinning again. This time there was a lot of oncoming traffic and a semi that was riding our tail behind us. Because of Tyler's teenage experience of flipping brodees in parking lots, he was able to maneuver the car onto the shoulder again. No cars, and luckily the diesel, didn't hit us. We were so close to hitting a pole though. Some friendly passerbys helped us get out and we decided we had enough!

Sorry my dear cousin... We just wanted to go home and be safe and not worry about driving anymore in this freezing cold mid-west weather. We went 35mph the whole home, taking us over 2 hours to get home (double the time as normal). We had been in the car all afternoon
and wasted a tank of gas. While Tyler was driving, I kept my mind on the new book I got for Christmas... TWILIGHT. Yes.... I am hooked like so many of you out there. Tyler would every so often ask what was going on. I would give him a quick synopsis of the latest chapters but I finally said, "Why don't I just read it outloud." With only 30 minutes left of the trip, I read the book. It was enough to get him hooked. He said, "Let's go home and read the rest of it!" So we put the kids to bed, and read together. We finished the book just in time to wish each other a Happy New Years!

Good Friends

We went swimming at the city aquatic center this last week. There were kids in the parking lot getting ready to go sledding at the nearby hill. We were heading inside to shed our layers of clothes to keep warm by the water instead. We had fun with our friends who were there. Thanks Tara for snapping a few shots of my kids.



Here is Makenzie with her best friend, Aida. They have a lot of fun together. The latest craze is dressing up- thanks to Aida's birthday gifts. Makenzie asks everyday to go over to Aida's house.